


Hopelessly Hopeful

by druscilla



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Split, Relationship Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 05:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5816791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/druscilla/pseuds/druscilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Same old trainwreck and beautiful disasters.  Someone will go down with this ship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hopelessly Hopeful

Tw: mental illness  
Set around IOH/Folie.

—

Pete buried his face against Patrick’s neck, his hands grabbing fistfuls of the other boy’s shirt and inhaling him deeply. “Need to get lost,” he whispered. “Help.” His voice was tears and paper cuts stinging from the salt. Patrick could feel the soft wetness start to tickle his neck, the older boy’s body shaking against his.

“Lost, baby?” Patrick murmured, wrapping his arms around the other boy, pulling him close, trying to pull him _in_. “Why lost?”

Pete’s legs kicked out, the way they did when he didn’t have words for what was going on inside of him, tearing him apart. It was different than the way he kicked when he didn’t want to tell. More defensive.

Pete shivered as he felt the chains wrapping around his chest, cold and unyielding. He could barely breathe but he couldn’t gasp. All he could see was himself, falling, falling. His hand would have been outstretched but the chains kept his arms down, weighed him down, dragged him down, slamming him down on the ground.

And then Pete was sputtering, sitting up and gasping for air that wasn’t there, grasping at and pausing away Patrick (who was attempting to calm him). The sunspots from staring at the overhead light were too much for Pete’s eyes, but closing them did no good. He felt sick, but he couldn’t move and he hadn’t even eaten that day so it wasn’t a possibility.

“PETE!”

Brown eyes snapped to find the sound, wide and panicked, but finally stilling on Patrick’s face. Pete’s mouth was open and his lips heaved as he gasped for breath, reaching up to wipe at bangs that were suddenly damp with cold sweat. “I’m breaking,” he mumbled, eyes falling to the bed. “Look at me.”

Patrick reached out to touch the older boy’s cheek, stroke tender fingers down to his jawbone before kissing him softly on the mouth. “It’s a bad day, baby. Its–”

“Its not a bad day,” Pete said darkly, lifting his head as he did, looking completely altered from the mess he was mere moments before. “It’s been … I’m not just … It’s not.” And there he was again, the broken boy, reaching up to fist his hands in his hair as he fell forward against Patrick. When he spoke, his voice had changed yet again, to a frenzied fantastical whisper. The younger boy pictured wide eyes and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Can we run away together? Just you and me? And Hemingway? And we’ll go to Europe where no one cares and buy groceries like boring people?”

Patrick winced against the nails on chalkboards sound in his ears, making the skin on his arms dot with goosebumps. “Running away doesn’t fix anything, Pete,” he told the other boy, voice low.

“We could get married and have babies.”

“Stop!” Patrick yelled, pulling away, horrified. His fingers were clutched to his chest like he’d been burnt and Pete’s eyes were boring into him, his mouth drawn in a tight line. “You don’t want to marry me?” It was the same dark voice from earlier.

Now Patrick was the one drawing in on himself, arms wrapping tightly around the knees that had pulled to his chest. “Not when you’re like this.”

“I’m _sick_ , Patrick,” Pete snapped, his voice now taking on an air of condescension as well. “I’m always going to be like this.”

“’s not what I meant,” Patrick mumbled, bringing a hand up to wipe at his wet eyes behind his glasses. He wasn’t looking at Pete. He had a pretty good guess how this was going to play out.

Pete pushed himself off the bed, keeping his eyes on Patrick as he slowly backed away. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to marry you either. Who would? You’re … you’re so … you’re fucking …” He bent down to grab a pair of his shoes and made a noise of annoyance at his inability to find one thing wrong with Patrick before grabbing his wallet and slamming the door.

And even though he knew it was going to happen, because it always did, Patrick put his face in a pillow and cried, waiting for his boyfriend to come back and apologize for whatever transgressions he was partaking in right now. He tried not to picture painted nails and lips against tattooed skin, the boy moaning into someone else’s ear, Pete sliding down against a wall later and crying while everyone pretended not to notice the hiccups.

He fell asleep to dreams of fork tongued girls laughing in the dark hallways of nightclubs that didn’t exist. Pete was always just out of reach, in the middle of a group of people talking at him, but not to him. He kept looking over his shoulder at Patrick and then laughing over loud at a fake joked whenever the singer tried to get his attention. Dream Patrick had just started to push his way down the hallway when the bed dipped and he was instantly awake.

Pete pushed into his neck, crying, not so different from a few hours before. “I can’t remember much,” he admitted in a whisper. “But I know I was mean and I have a hickey on my neck.” He cried harder and Patrick pushed down the tears and the brick in his stomach and kissed the older boy’s forehead.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he lied, voice full of promise. “It’ll be okay. Go to sleep.”

Pete was still crying and Patrick rocked him, hating Pete, hating himself, hating both of them. He was no fucking help at all by this point, just stupid and scared and hurt. Maybe Pete couldn’t get better with him. Maybe he was just an enabler. Maybe he needed to leave after Pete one night and not come back.

“I meant it though,” Pete said suddenly, breaking the mostly silence. “About marrying you. I want to marry you. Someday.”

Patrick’s heart melted and the brick seemed a little smaller. He wasn’t going anywhere. “Someday.” Not quite a promise, not quite a lie. Hope. That was all the pair of them had. It was all anyone had really.


End file.
